So between traveling for two weeks to Spain and France with my two besties and working on something special for the past eight months, I've been crazy busy and have sadly neglected this blog. Therefore, I come before you today with a confection-based apology. Cozy on up on your couch with your fan and maybe your air conditioner too, because this weekend is going to be hot. Also, while you're cozied up, eat a macaroon. And read a book. Specifically, this one:

So they're not perfect...you try cutting 20 books of 116 pages each using an enormous guillotine, aka, paper cutter, built in 1946. :-P

This time last year I had never heard of the Independent Publishing Resource Center, even though I had just moved into an apartment a mere 1.3 miles away. A friend told me about their year-long fiction/non-fiction certificate program on July 29th, the date which I remember because the deadline for applications, including writing samples, was July 31st. I freaked out, decided that was a brilliant idea, and immediately filled out the application and typed and sent in ten vignettes I had written in the past year. My lofty goal for my final project was a book entitled Divorce: A Love Story with Recipes. Fast forward to now, and those ten vignettes have grown into a little 116 page book that I wrote, arranged into book format through InDesign, designed a cover for, printed, and bound, all by myself. Okay, I did it with the help of a lovely cohort of talented writers, IPRC volunteers, a mentor and a teacher, and also my second writing group I met through Write Around Portland (I love you guys!). I still hate InDesign. And Adobe products in general. Same goes for the IPRC's black and white printer, Blanche. But Super Stan the color printer is cool.

I'm still working on a Kindle-compatible e-book version.

So if you want to learn how to self-publish, check out the IPRC. I'm super glad I did. In the meantime, don't forget to make these macaroons that I'm taking to the IPRC graduation ceremony tonight. And since I know when I post this, my bestie's husband is going to say, "HEY, YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO SEND ME THESE IN THE MAIL AS PAYMENT FOR DRIVING YOU ALL OVER FRANCE!", I have to add, "I know, I know! I'll send you some soon, I promise. I'm just worried they will melt by the time they reach Atlanta." Besides, I already paid for the rental car with real money, not just coconut-based currency. :-P

I got the recipe idea from this blog, but decided it was silly not to use the whole can of sweetened condensed milk because I kept forgetting to use the rest and ended up throwing it away. Therefore, I decided it would behoove me to just make more macaroons. I can be smart like that sometimes.

1. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

2. In a large mixing bowl, stir together the shredded coconut, sweetened condensed milk, salt and vanilla extract. Set aside.3. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the egg whites on low setting until they start to foam, then increase to high speed until firm peaks form. 4. Using a rubber spatula, fold the egg whites into the bowl o' coconut just until incorporated.5. Using a small cookie scoop (mine holds a scant tablespoon and has a spring-loaded handle for easier release), scoop out small coconut mounds onto the parchment-lined baking sheets. The recipe made approximately 65 small macaroons. Bake 20-25 minutes, until the bottoms of the macaroons are deep brown and the tops are golden brown and starting to look toasty and delicious in spots.6. For dipping, melt the chocolate in a bowl set over a small pot of simmering water until most of the chocolate pieces are melted. Remove from the pot of water and keep stirring until all of the chocolate is melted. Try to keep the chocolate from going over 95 degrees so it will keep it's shine. Alternatively, you can refrigerate the macaroons immediately after their chocolate bath, but you could still end up with streaks in the chocolate and they won't look as pretty. Honestly, it's a pain in the ass to keep a large amount of chocolate at temper, so for efficiency's sake, today I used the Christmas present I gave to myself last year, affectionally nicknamed the Choco-nator 5000.) Dip half of a macaroon into the chocolate, letting any excess drip back into the bowl, and return to baking sheets. Repeat with the remaining macaroons. Eat them, take them to your graduation, mail them to your best friend's husband even though it's 90 degrees in Atlanta, whatever you prefer.

"But Erin," you're saying to yourself right now, "berries aren't in season yet!" Yes, you're very smart. But, these berries from my freezer were the end of my u-pick bounty from last summer. I thought it was time to clear the way for the berries yet to come. There's still a few more months until I have to start obsessively checking my favorite u-pick farm's Twitter and Facebook feeds to find out when strawberries begin. So in the meantime, crack open a bag of frozen berries, whip up a batch of French toast, and because it's going to be an unseasonably warm and sunny 70 degrees for much of the next week here in Portland, pretend fresh berry season is just around the corner.

The sauce can be made ahead of time and will keep in the fridge for several days. If making on the same day, start the sauce before cooking the French toast, as reducing the liquid to a syrupy consistency takes about 10 minutes, and the toast is best served immediately after cooking.

For berry sauce:16 oz frozen mixed berries, such as sliced strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries, divided2 Tbsp granulated sugar (you can add more if you like sweet syrup, but I don't)1/4 cup water

1. Put 1/2 of the berries (so 8 oz) in a medium sauce pan along with the 2 Tbsp granulated sugar and 1/4 water. Bring to a boil and cook 5 minutes on medium-high heat, or until the fruit is soft. Transfer the fruit to a fine-mesh sieve over a larger bowl or measuring cup, and drain all of the liquid from the fruit. Mash up the fruit and press as much of the pulp and juice as you can through the sieve. You'll have about 1 cup of sauce.

2. Transfer the strained sauce back to the same saucepan, and turn the heat to medium-high. Cook for 10 minutes or until the sauce has reduced by almost half and has a thicker, syrupy consistency. Check for sweetness and add extra sugar if you want now, so it will dissolve into the syrup.

3. Add the remaining 8 oz of berries to the saucepan. Cook for about 2 minutes, until the berries look like they are just beginning to thaw, then turn off the heat and leave the saucepan sitting on the burner while you cook the French toast. Because I wanted the syrup to retain the whole pieces of fruit, and cooking it too long will cause it to break apart, I let the residual heat from the burner and the syrup warm up the sliced fruit.

French Toast:

1. Heat up a large skillet or griddle over medium heat. Mix all of the batter ingredients from the eggs through the nutmeg in a medium mixing bowl. Set this bowl beside the pan you'll cook the French toast in, and have the bread and a spatula nearby as well. And now we cook ze toast.

2. Add half of the butter to the skillet or griddle pan and spread it evenly over the surface. When it begins sizzling, it's ready! Dip a piece of the bread into the egg mixture and turn over so it is evenly coated (I did two quick turns, but don't leave the bread sitting in the eggs too long or it will be soggy), then add it to the skillet. Repeat with as many slices of bread as will fit on your skillet in a single layer; I was able to cook the twelve slices in two batches on a long griddle set over two of my burners.

3. Cook on one side until the bread is golden brown on the bottom, about 2-3 minutes, then flip over to cook the second side the same. Repeat until all twelve pieces are golden brown and delicious.

4. Place as many pieces of French toast on your plate as you wish, then pour on the berry syrup and enjoy.

Once upon a time there was a girl. She often enjoyed a delightful weekend brunch with all of her lady friends. Sometimes there was leftover champagne. Once the last mimosa had been quaffed, the girl usually threw out the rest of the bottle. Until one day, P said to the girl, "You're not throwing that out are you?! Add that to the strawberry sorbet you said you were making this afternoon!!" "You just blew my mind," said the girl to P. And add the champagne to the sorbet she did. The strawberry sorbet was ever more delicious than it usually was. And they all lived happily ever after. The end.

I've had the ice cream attachment for my Kitchen Aid stand mixer for at least 5 or 6 years now, and produced many a batch of sorbets and ice creams, especially with the help of David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop. Since I've already begun my downward spiral into u-pick farm addiction this season, I had a few extra pounds of Hood strawberries sitting not-so-patiently in the refrigerator. Some I turned into strawberry-jalapeno jelly, which was quite delightful paired with goat cheese (or cream cheese) on crackers. The last pound of strawberries became a batch of sorbet, and almost as an afterthought, added the cup of leftover cava (Spanish sparkling wine) to the strawberries. It adds just a little extra "there's something else besides strawberries and I love it but I can't figure out what it is" to the sorbet. I thought I would be extra crazy and serve the sorbet with a rosemary-lemon shortbread. I liked the combination of flavors and textures, and I bet you might like it too.

I was teaching another macaron making class at my apartment last week, and the shell flavor that we made was flavored with rhubarb bitters. I filled them with rhubarb white chocolate ganache, since the previous class I had made a rhubarb jam buttercream and one of the participants said it didn't really do it for her (which is fine, since taste is so subjective, right?). So this time rhubarb jam mixed into a white chocolate ganache seemed to be a hit with my new group, who happily gobbled them up. I had a lot of leftover rhubarb jam after the class, and since I'm a big fan of jam cookies, I thought I should dust off the ol' thumbprint classic by adding some ground almond flour and giving it a kiss of lemon and rhubarb goodness. I was not disappointed in the results, and I don't think you will be either.

1/2 cup rhubarb jam (recipe from Pomona Pectin's website, but I cut their recipe in 1/2 as I only had 2 cups of cooked rhubarb )

Preheat to 325°F. Line 2 half-sheet pans with parchment paper. Whisk all-purpose flour, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl to blend. Cream butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer until smooth. Beat in 1/2 cup finely ground almond meal, lemon zest and the vanilla. Mix in flour mixture until just combined.

Shape large tablespoonfuls of the dough into round balls (or if you're a perfectionist like me, weigh 0.75 oz of dough to ensure identically-sized cookies). Place the rounds on your baking sheet, spacing 2 inches apart. Using your mega-sized thumb, poke a deep hole in each dough ball (or if you have a small mortar & pestle like me, you can use the skinnier end of the pestle to poke the hole). If the edges of the cookie come apart, press them back together as much as possible so your filling won’t leak out of the center. Fill each indentation with 1 rounded teaspoon of rhubarb jam. Bake cookies until light golden brown around edges, about 15-18 minutes, switching the pans front to back and top to bottom so both sheets of cookies bake evenly. Cool on baking sheet before removing. Sift powdered sugar lightly over the tops of the cookies. Makes about 20 thumbprint cookies.

Me at the farmer's market last week was probably akin to a kid in the proverbial candy store; there was more rhubarb to be had, calçots, miner's lettuce, new potatoes red and gold, and GREEN. GARLIC. What is green garlic, you ask?

This is!

I can probably safely assume that you normally buy garlic at the grocery store in the familiar white, dried papery skin with cloves you can separate from each other. But if you have a farmer's market within easy reach, see if they aren't selling green garlic this time of year. It has the look and texture of green onions but the flavor is still all garlic (though slightly milder, which means you get to use more of it, yay!). I explained it to my April Boy's friends as "a green onion fell in love with a garlic clove and got married and had babies and then I chopped up the babies and bathed them in butter." I think they accepted this perfectly plausible explanation because I quickly sautéed the green garlic just with butter and salt and served it on baguette slices. They licked the bowl clean.

So that is one really easy and tasty way to use green garlic, but it also has a special affinity for eggs. Portlanders have a torrid love affair with weekend brunch, and even just typing that sentence had me off in Googleland for a good half hour watching clips from the Portlandia brunch episode. But now that I'm back, if you prefer your brunch without the hour and a half wait, invite your besties over (tell them to bring the mimosas!), brew a big French press pot of Stumptown's Hair Bender roast, and whip up this hash with or without the duck confit (try it with bacon! you'll like it). It'll be just like you're in Portland.

Clockwise from upper left corner: Chopped yellow onion, shredded duck confit from Chop (PSU farmer's market booth or also sold at Pasta Works/City Market), sliced and par-boiled new potatoes, eggs, chopped green garlic including the tender part of the green stalk, shitake mushrooms, chopped parsley.

Serves 4 for brunch

1 small yellow onion, diced

1 bunch green garlic, rinsed and chopped, bulb part plus the light green part of the stalk

8 oz shitake or baby bella mushrooms, sliced

1 lb yellow or red new potatoes, parboiled for 7-10 minutes, then sliced

2 legs duck confit, meat shredded from the bones, fat reserved

4 eggs

2 Tbsp butter

optional 1 Tbsp fresh parsley, chopped

salt and pepper to taste

1. Melt 1 Tbsp duck fat removed from the duck confit in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add the shredded duck and cook until crispy. Remove the duck from the pan with a slotted spoon, reserving the fat in the pan.

2. Add the sliced new potatoes to the pan and cook 5 minutes, or until lightly browned and crisp on one side, then flip over. Brown the second side of the potatoes, another 3-5 minutes, then remove from the pan.

3. Add the chopped onion and the sliced shitake (or baby bella) mushrooms to the pan. Sauté until the onions are softened and start to color and the mushrooms have released their liquid and are tender.

4. Remove the onion and mushrooms from the pan and mix with the duck and potatoes. Divide this mixture among 4 plates.

5. Add the 2 Tbsp butter to the empty skillet. Once it's melted, crack the 4 eggs into the pan and scatter all of the chopped green garlic into the pan. Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper to taste. Cook until the egg whites are set (if you don't like your yolks runny like I do, you can flip the eggs over and cook on the second side until well done, but don't tell me if you do because I will be kind of sad.

6. Carefully arrange one of the sunny side up eggs on top of one of the plates of hash. Repeat with the other three eggs and plates. Sop up any bits of runny yolk and green garlic with toast.

Growing up, my dad had a patch of rhubarb in the side yard that he lovingly tended to, but occasionally my Pawpaw (my grandparents lived next door) would run over it with his riding lawnmower and that would be it for that year's rhubarb. My dad made a lot of strawberry rhubarb pies and rhubarb compote in the years when the rhubarb was not a lawnmower victim. Now that I'm all the way across the country, and my dad's rhubarb patch has long since succumbed to homicide, every spring, I eagerly await the first farmer's market stand to offer rhubarb and then I start scheming up ways to bake with it.

This was the earliest rhubarb from a few weeks ago; it was down to $3/lb last Saturday. I like their "other kind of kale that's also green" designation on the far right.

I saw a recipe for a rhubarb yogurt muffin on Portland Monthly, given by Little T Bakers. As I was making it, I wanted to add a bunch of things but told myself in the name of science I had to make it true to the original recipe first, then make a second batch to compare. Imagine my horror when my single-blind-of-course-it's-scientifically-sound-study-with-3-participants resulted in a 3-0 preference for the original recipe for the muffin, but the more-cinnamon-sugar-topping-of my fru-fru version. So, for a third-time-is-the-charm comparison, I stuck closer to the original recipe, but still added more rhubarb, plus lemon zest and vanilla extract. This time, I think I nailed the light texture due to the Greek yogurt and the little bit of extra butter I added. Chopping the rhubarb into evenly-sized small pieces ensures a nice distribution of tart rhubarb-y goodness throughout the whole muffin.

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 egg

8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, melted and slightly cooled

1 cup Greek yogurt

grated zest from 1 lemon

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 cups (10 oz) rhubarb, diced 1/4 inch pieces

Topping: 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon mixed with 2 Tbsp granulated sugar

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2. In a medium bowl, stir together the 1/2 cup granulated sugar with the 10 oz rhubarb pieces.

4. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the yogurt, melted butter, egg, lemon zest, and vanilla.

5. With a large spoon, stir 1/2 the flour mixture into the yogurt mixture, followed by the sugared rhubarb (and any accumulated juice) and the remaining flour. Stir only until combined; do not over mix! Nobody wants to eat a tough muffin. :-(

6. Spoon the batter evenly into a muffin tin with 12 muffin liners (I used the large freestanding ones because I thought they were cute and spring-y in design, but boring old plain ones in a muffin tin do the job just as well.) Sprinkle each muffin top with the cinnamon-sugar mixture.

I know, I know, I made this nettle bacon pizza a few weeks ago and haven't gotten around to posting the recipe until now! The day I made the pizza with a friend, we also wrote some short stories together, and of course mine was influenced by nettle-brain, the state of thinking about cooking and eating nettles (true fact).

The prompt we used was: Once upon a time there was.... Every day.... Until one day..... and then..... and then....until finally.....

Once upon a time there was a patch of nettles. Every day it looked forward to stinging unfortunate human visitors. Until one day, it got picked by a smart person wearing thick gloves and long sleeves and pants. And then it got put into a giant tub and sent to the farmer's market to be sold to yuppies for $7/lb. And then a bespectacled young lady took to the bin of nettles, earnestly plucking the choicest of stems while her friends mocked her unusual culinary choices. Until finally, she went home and cooked a nettle and bacon pizza to woo her cute man friend with such fine delicacies.

In case you were wondering, these nettles are thinking, "WARNING, CAUTION, I STING YOUUUUUUUUUUUUU, MWHAHAHA."

Nettles look and sound scary, but a quick boil renders them harmless and yields a nuttier, earthier substitute for various cooked greens such as spinach, chard, kale. Searching for nettle recipes on the internet results in a wide variety of recipes from soups to risotto to pesto to pizza. I settled on pizza because I had eaten a nettle pizza with a poached egg on it at a local restaurant a few years back, and had always wanted to give it a try at home. Since I already had some sourdough starter in the fridge that makes a lovely pizza crust, I got to work at once.

Remove the leaves from the stems while wearing long sleeves and rubber gloves to protect your arms and hands. Add just the leaves to a large pot of boiling water. Boil 3-4 minutes, until bright green and wilted. Now you can eat nettles without fear!

Before you begin pizza construction, preheat your oven as hot as it will go (500 or 550, usually), and place a pizza stone on the lowest oven rack.

I chopped the boiled nettle leaves and gave them a quick sauté in the same pan in which I had sautéed the mushrooms in 2 Tbsp bacon fat.

Roll out each piece of dough into 10-12 inch circles and place them on a sheet of parchment paper. I’ve had more than one near-disaster of pizza-on-pizza-peel-violence, so I ‘cheat’ and usually just bake the pizza on the parchment paper, which will turn black but should not catch fire (at least mine doesn’t!). The pizza peel still gets in on the pizza action as I use it to transfer pizza-and-parchment to the preheated pizza stone, but I don’t have to worry about the crust sticking to the peel.

Evenly spread 1/3 cup of the marinara sauce over each crust, leaving a border along the edges. Sprinkle on the Pecorino Romano and Parmigiano Reggiano cheeses, then top with the nettles and mushrooms and bacon and sprinkle on the Mozzarella. Transfer the pizza on the parchment paper to the pizza stone in your preheated oven and bake for about 10 minutes, until the crust and cheese are lightly browned. Cool for a few minutes before slicing.

I can personally testify that this pizza is exceptionally tasty the next morning reheated with a fried egg on top.

I wasn't sure what to call these because I had lemon bars in mind but with my usual affinity for both extra crust-to-filling-ratio and individual-sized desserts, I decided to put the lemon curd filling into the shells for this recipe instead of berry jams. They're just cute, ok?! Was it a cookie? Was it a tart? Was it a cookie-who-wanted-to-be-a-tart-when-it-grew-up? So my first inclination was to call them Meyer Lemon Doodads, because 'doodad' is my go-to word when I can't think of the word for something off the top of my head. And then that made me want to post this little story I wrote in my Write Around Portland Prompt workshop that meets at Powell's. The prompt was "I forgot the word for it" and I think we had 6 minutes to write, so I'm not exactly apologizing for my writing, since we're not supposed to apologize, but I am pointing out that it's unedited and written in a very short time span. Ok, semi-apology over.

I often forget the word for something or another when under pressure. I've taken to substituting "doodad" in it's place. I can only imagine this being rather unhelpful when I ask the friend cooking with me to hand me the doodad in the top right drawer. I don't know why or when "doodad" entered my lexicon as the omnipotent substitute word, but it's firmly entrenched by now.

The missing bottle opener, the cat's catnip cigar, the arm band to fit my phone in when I go running, doodads all of them. Even my current romantic interest has taken to the word, first in a teasing way, and now because various incarnations of it make both of us laugh. The root beer float we share becomes a "rootdad", the sunset we photograph at Cannon Beach becomes a "sundad" .

Cream 1 cup butter in the bowl of a stand mixer with granulated sugar and powdered sugar and salt; beat until well blended, about 2 minutes, then add in egg yolks and vanilla. Add the flour and mix just until combined. Dough will be soft and slightly sticky.

To roll out the dough, first divide the dough in half. Place each half between 2 sheets of parchment paper. Flatten the dough into disks. Working with 1 disk at a time, roll out dough, occasionally lifting paper on both sides for easy rolling, until 1/4" thick. Refrigerate the parchment sheets of dough until firm, about 2 hours.

For streusel: Mix 3/4 cup flour, 1/3 cup sugar, and salt in a small mixing bowl. Using your fingertips, rub 6 Tbsp butter and 1/4 tsp vanilla into the dry ingredients until no large lumps remain. Streusel will be sandy and hold its shape when pressed between your fingers. Cover and chill.

Preheat oven to 350. Spray 3 muffin tins with non-stick spray.

Cut out rounds of the refrigerated dough with a 2 ½ inch round cookie cutter. Place the rounds in the muffin tins, gently pressing them to fit the shape of the tin. Continue cutting frozen dough into rounds; gather scraps and repeat process of rolling out and cutting to make 30 rounds. If the dough gets too soft upon re-rolling and starts to stick or tear, refrigerate for 30 minutes again before re-rolling. Refrigerate the muffin tins for 30 minutes before you fill them with lemon curd, to ensure the crust is cold before baking.

Spoon about 1 Tbsp lemon curd or 1 1/2 tsp jam into the center of each round of dough. Sprinkle 1-1 1/2 tablespoons streusel around the edges of each tart, trying not to get any into the center of the lemon curd. I used a small circle of parchment paper that I laid on top of the lemon curd and then sprinkled the streusel around it. It was kind of messy to remove it from the filling, but at least I didn't get streusel all in the middle.

Bake at 350 for 20-22 minutes until the crust is golden brown and delicious. Makes about 30 tasty tiny tarts.

Yup, Meyer lemons again! Sorry, they're kind of addictive this time of year. Lemon curd is a tasty, tart topping perfect for dolloping on top of your favorite scone, layering into a trifle or in the middle of a cake, or my personal favorite, lemon bars (recipe coming soon to a favorite food blog near you). If you don't have Meyer lemons, regular lemons will do. I just enjoy the slightly milder tang, and definitely brighter hue, of the Meyer lemon.

I adapted this recipe from Rose Levy Berenbaum's excellent cookbook Rose's Heavenly Cakes. It's what I flip through when I feel like making 87 components and slapping together a tower of cake-y goodness. The majority of the layer cakes in the book might be a bit tough for beginners, but the chapter on baby cakes (you know I can't resist making individual cute cakes) could be a good place to start. I recommend purchasing a kitchen scale if you don't have one yet. They're relatively inexpensive, they don't have to take up a ton of counter space, and they're invaluable when it comes to having baking successes instead of failures. So I followed the lemon curd recipe by weighing the ingredients by ounces, and found that my eggs must be slightly smaller because I needed 8 egg yolks instead of 7 to reach 4.6 oz (130 grams). Meyer lemons are also often smaller than regular lemons, so I needed to juice 4 Meyer lemons to make 5 oz of juice.

Oops, that farm egg is definitely more orange than the Trader Joe's egg yolks. :-P

The butter is melted and all the ingredients are combined, but it's still a very thin consistency.

Combine the egg yolks, granulated sugar, lemon juice, pinch of salt, and butter in a medium saucepan (all of the ingredients except for the zest, which will be stirred in last after the curd is strained).

Cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until the lemon curd has thickened and coats the spatula, about 10 minutes. The reason you need to cook it over medium-low heat and keep stirring it the whole time is because if it gets too hot and reaches a boil, you're going to end up with a pot of lemony, sugary scrambled eggs that no amount of straining will save. So opt for low heat, please, and don't pick up the phone if Aunt Myrtle calls while you're making the curd, because you know how long-winded she is.

This is what the curd should look like after about 10 minutes cooking (while stirring constantly) over medium-low heat. See how it thickly coats the spatula? This is the consistency you are aiming for.

Strain the lemon curd through a fine mesh strainer, to remove any small bits of egg or lemon pulp, then stir in the 3 tsp of fresh Meyer lemon zest. This recipe makes 1 3/4 cups of lemon curd. It will keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks according to the cookbook, but I try to use it within 2.

Happy St. Patrick's Day to you! I'm obviously a slacker for waiting until late in the day to post my Patty's Day recipe, but I promise that you will want to make it way more often than just once a year. I offer you no corned beef nor cabbage, no green cookies nor cupcakes, but I think you won't be too disappointed with my offering of chocolate AND beer. I followed this recipe, but then I did some tweaking of my own, including baking them in madeleine pans to yield 24 individual brownies (Why did I not do this sooner? Each brownie has their own edges and more frosting real estate! I got the idea from my favorite cake cookbook.)

If you want to just bake a normal pan of brownies instead of individual ones, follow the baking instructions in the first link (though I would use parchment, not foil, for lining the pan, and really, why do you not want baby brownies with their own edges? What's wrong with you?). As always, for faster chocolate chopping, you can very coarsely break it into pieces and process in a food processor until finely chopped, almost ground, so it will melt faster.

When I read the reviews on the original Bon Appetit recipe, there were a bunch of people complaining the batter was way too runny and never set up. It left me wondering if they didn't reduce the beer and just added a whole cup to the batter. For the love of all that is holy, please follow the instructions and reduce the beer by half, then only add 1/4 cup of beer reduction to the brownie batter. Your brownies and your resident food blogger will thank you. :-) Reducing the beer concentrates the flavor, and will also cook off most of the alcohol.

Brownies:

14.9 oz can of Guinness or your favorite stout

12 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped

1 1/3 sticks (150 g) unsalted butter

1 cup sugar

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon table salt

Glaze:

7 ounces bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate

4 tbsp butter

¼ tsp Kosher salt

the rest of the beer reduction, about 1/2 cup

Preheat oven to 350°, and spray 2 Madeleine pans with non-stick cooking spray. Bring stout to a boil in a medium sauce pan; cook until reduced to half (about 3/4 cup), about 12 minutes. Let cool. You will be using 1/4 cup of the beer reduction in the batter, so set the remainder of the beer aside for the glaze.

Stir the 12 oz of chocolate and 1 1/3 sticks butter in a medium metal bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water until melted and smooth. (I semi-cheated and just melted it over the stout while it was reducing, just be careful to remove the bowl often and stir so you don't accidentally burn the chocolate.)

Whisk sugar, eggs, and vanilla in a large bowl to blend. Gradually whisk in the melted chocolate and butter, then 1/4 cup of the Guinness reduction. In a separate small bowl, mix together the flour and salt, then sift into the chocolate mixture. Fold in the dry ingredients just until combined (don't over mix or you could end up with sad, tough brownies). Spoon the batter into the prepared Madeleine pans.

Bake brownies until the surfaces are slightly puffed and beginning to crack and the edges are slightly darker than the middles, about 15 minutes. I baked both Madeleine pans at the same time, so I rotated the pans halfway through the baking time. Let the brownies cool for at least 20 minutes, before carefully removing from the pans and setting them shell-side up. Make the glaze by stirring the remaining 7 oz of chocolate and 4 Tbsp of butter in a small saucepan (I used the same one that I had reduced the Guinness in, because why wash two saucepans instead of one?) over medium-low heat until melted and smooth. Add reserved reduced stout (about 1/2 cup) and 1/4 tsp kosher salt and whisk until combined.

One might think, "Ah, I need a healthy side dish, let's make a salad!", but many of us are guilty of then loading the salad up with bazillions of calories. And by many of us, I mean me. Somewhere between "salad" and adding breaded, fried chicken tenders, hard-boiled eggs, cubes of sharp cheddar cheese, and homemade ranch dressing, the ".....healthy" part got tossed out the second story window and run over by the streetcar. I'm not going to lie, it was a fabulous salad-as-main-course. I kinda want to eat it again now that I'm writing about it. But, that salad would never do paired with an already heavy main dish. So next time you're whipping up your favorite spaghetti alla carbonara and need a light salad to pair with it, think of this salad topped with shaved fennel, red onion, walnuts, parsley, and olive oil and lemon juice and a sprinkling of salt and pepper. Crunchy, fresh, and light, it won't fill you up...so there's more room in your belly.... for carbonara, of course.

In a previous apartment, I lived close to a little restaurant that had been around for a while, Caffe Allora. I haven't eaten there in a year or two, but as far as I know it's still trucking along. I got my inspiration for this recipe from their Insalata Mista. You can slice the fennel bulb, but you won't be able to get the pieces as thin using a chef's knife as you can by just simply shaving the fennel with a vegetable peeler. Serves 4 as a side salad.

1 lemon (I used a Meyer lemon, which is less acidic than a regular lemon)

Extra-virgin Olive oil (a good quality kind that you use in salad dressings)

a handful of fresh parsley leaves

1/4 cup chopped walnut pieces

1 bag favorite lettuce mix (I used mixed butter lettuce)

1. Shave the fennel bulb into thin, crunchy strips using a vegetable peeler.

2. Thinly slice the red onion half into half moons. *Super important awesome onion tip: You can tame a good deal of the sharp flavor of fresh onions simply by rinsing the onions under cold running water, then draining. I always do this, especially when using red onions raw in a salad.

3. Remove the stems from the parsley. You can chop the parsley into fine dice if you prefer, but I think the salad looks prettier with whole leaves.

4. Divide the lettuce in between 4 salad plates. Divide up the shredded fennel evenly among the plates, then do the same with the red onion. Sprinkle on the parsley and a little salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste. Add about 2 tablespoons of walnuts per salad.

5. For the 'dressing', simply slice the lemon in half and squeeze the juice over each salad. Then drizzle on a few teaspoons of olive oil over each salad. Enjoy!

Tis the season for grey, rainy days, which is why I think you should buy lots of brightly colored citrus while it's also in season. It's good for you and all that, which is why I coat it in sugar and maybe some dark chocolate while I'm at it. Blood oranges, like Meyer Lemons, are a more recent supermarket staple; I don't ever recall seeing them in the midwest until less than 10 years ago. The peel has a rosy blush to it, and the flesh is light pink to dark red, almost purple. I think blood oranges taste like fruit punch. :-)

Candied orange peel is great chopped up and added to baked goods (cranberry-orange scones, or the Panettone I made at Christmas, anyone?), or you can eat it as a tasty dessert, especially if the finished candied orange peels happen to go for a swim in a dark chocolate bath (you never know what they're up to when your back is turned). Try using your favorite citrus peel in place of the blood oranges; originally I was inspired by this recipe for candied Meyer lemon peels, so experiment with anything from the normal naval oranges to Satsumas or lemons.

1. Cut off both ends of the oranges, then slice the peel in half with a paring knife, cutting through the pith but not the fruit itself. Starting where you made the cut through the peel, you should be able to slide your fingers in between the peel and the orange itself and keep peeling until you've removed it from the fruit. Set the flesh aside for another use, or juice it and add some sparkling water (or you know...champagne) for a tasty winter cocktail.

2 Slice the peel into equally-sized strips.

3. Place the strips of orange peel into a medium-sized saucepan and fill with cold water. Bring the water to boil over medium heat, and let boil for a minute, then drain the peels into a colander and rinse under cold water.

4. Repeat step 3 two more times for a total of 3 times. The reason for this is because the peel would be way too bitter if you skipped this step, so you can do it!

5. After blanching the peel three times, set aside temporarily while combining 1 1/2 cups of granulated sugar with 1 1/2 cups of water in the medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir until the sugar has dissolved and comes to a simmer. Add the blanched peels to the sugar and simmer over medium-low heat for about 25 minutes, or until the peel is translucent and soft.

6. Strain the peel (if you have leftover orange-flavored sugar syrup, add it to the winter cocktail I mentioned above, you will thank me for the suggestion). Coat the peels in the remaining 1/3 cup granulated sugar and lay to dry on a metal rack overnight until dry to the touch.

7. If you are feeling extra naughty, melt 4 oz dark chocolate in a bowl set on top of a simmering pot of water, then dip the dried candied peels into the chocolate. Place the chocolate-dipped peels on a piece of parchment paper until set, then try not to eat them all before you give them to a friend for her birthday.

Cooking for Mr. Latte was one of the first food memoirs that I read. Before that, I had no idea an entire genre of food writing existed (other than the obvious cookbooks, of course) and I was instantly hooked. I like the idea of telling one's life story through and around recipes. Everybody's gotta eat of course, but I'm especially fascinated by exploring different cultures through food, and feeling a part of a community when cooking and eating together.

So, once I got started reading food memoirs, I racked up a sizable collection of them, but I've only been inspired to cook out of a handful of them. Cooking for Mr. Latte is one of those that I've made multiple recipes from, especially the Meyer Lemon Sablés. Back when I was first reading the book, Meyer Lemons were hard to come by, Jungle Jim's International Market in Cincinnati being the only place I used to be able to find them when I lived in Ohio. Now, you can find them every winter in most grocery stores such as Safeway and Fred Meyer. A Meyer Lemon is not as sour as a regular lemon, and is deep yellow to light orange in color. This cookie is still delicious if you can only find regular lemons, so don't let that stop you.

1. Mix together flour and baking powder in a medium-sized bowl, set aside.

2. Cream together the butter, powdered sugar and 1/2 cup granulated sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer.

3. Add in lemon zest, salt, and the 4 egg yolks and mix well until incorporated.

4. Mix in the flour and baking powder until just combined, then turn out on to parchment paper. Divide the dough in half, then roll each half into a log, about 1 1/2 inches wide. The dough will be fairly sticky, so it helps to use the parchment paper to push the dough together rather than your hands.

5. Chill the logs of dough in the refrigerator for 2 hours and up to 2-3 days. When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350.

6. Unwrap the parchment paper and roll each log in the 1/4 cup turbinado sugar until evenly coated.

7. Slice each log into 1/4 inch circles, about 25 per log. Place cookies 2 inches apart on parchment-lined sheet pans. Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes, until the sugar-coated edges are lightly browned and the middle of the cookies look set. Makes about 50 cookies.

If you've been to the winter farmer's market this year, you probably noticed the abundance of knobby, gnarly, tubular root vegetables, and most of them you may have never cooked before. Frankly, they probably scare you a little bit. It's okay, don't be afraid. They don't bite. Except for maybe Green Meat Radishes, who knows what these sneaky bastards are up to.

The internet makes it easy to find recipes when you've never cooked something before, and sunchokes are no exception. Sunchokes, aka Jerusalem Artichokes (neither from Jerusalem nor an artichoke, discuss amongst yourselves), look sort of like a big piece of ginger or maybe a really weird potato. They are in the tuber family, but much less well-known and perhaps suffer from a bit of a bad rap.*

Sunchokes, like all of it's tuber-brethren, do well roasted, sautéed and in soups. So rather than follow any one specific recipe, I just decided to slice them thin and oven-roast until crispy on the outside and soft in the middle. Then I drizzled over a little leftover garlic-green onion oil I had made the other day for a celeriac green apple soup.

2. Scrub scrubby scrub scrub your sunchokes to remove any dirt. Mine were particularly knobby, so I cut off the knobs and scrubbed again because quite a bit of dirt was hiding in the nooks and crannies.

3. Slice thin, and try to get the slices right about the same size (maybe 1/8 inch?) so that they all finish cooking at the same time.

4. Toss with the 1 Tbsp vegetable oil and the 1/2 tsp salt, and a few grinds of black pepper, then spread out on a sheet pan (I lined it with parchment paper for easier cleanup).

5. Roast until browned and tender, about 35-40 minutes, turning halfway through the cooking time.

6. Serve as a tasty side dish instead of the usual potatoes.

*I probably won't ever reference stomach problems ever again, because let's face it, who wants to think about that when reading a food blog and looking at photographs of tasty food? But, if I want to be seen as a trustworthy source for recipes and a champion of lesser-known local veggies, I would be remiss if I did not warn you to eat only a little bit of sunchokes first until you're sure that it won't have ill effects on your tummy. Otherwise, I would be leading you like clueless, adorable baby lambs to the (gastrointestinal) slaughter, and that's just not fair to you.